


Daffodil Garden

by frantstic



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 23:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frantstic/pseuds/frantstic
Summary: Dan Howell is the only ordinary one in a world of remarkable people. Phil Lester is the only one that sees his lack of a power as a power in and of itself.





	Daffodil Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is new to my ao3 but it's been on my tumblr for a while. You can follow me there to get find my fics earlier!! 
> 
> Thank you, and enjoy! - Francesca
> 
> tumblr: dnpeas

Dan was always remarkably ordinary, and in the world he lived in, such a thing was dangerously unfortunate.

By the time he hit 13, he started to become aware of just how ordinary he was. When his classroom was full of invisible students, bursts of fire, and floating desks while he sat patiently, powerless hands still in his lap. When kids would run up to him, eyes bright and wide, begging to know what his superpower was, and he didn’t have a reply. When he heard his parents speak to each other in the next room, the walls thin enough for Dan to hear even the slightest of whispers. 

“It’s unheard of!”

“He’ll be fine.”

“It will be rough for him.”

“He can manage.”

And from then on, Dan understood that he was different, and not in a good way. 

-

“Hey, you must be Dan Howell!”

Dan had expected his first day of high school to go horribly wrong, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when a pair of invisible hands seized him by the collar as soon as he stepped outside for lunch. The hands were attached to Nolan McClain, who had allegedly mastered his invisible limbs by the time he was eight, and had been using them to torture others ever since. 

Dan’s feet dangled in the air as Nolan tilted his head higher, bringing Dan with it. “Is it true you don’t have powers, Howell?”

“Fuck off,” Dan grunted, kicking his legs angrily. 

“What are you going to do about it?” Nolan scoffed. “The only power you’ve got is a big mouth.”

Dan opened his big mouth to spit out another insult when something wrapped around Nolan, a giant vine crawling from his thigh to his neck. Dan went tumbling towards the ground as Nolan lost focus. He braced for the impact that never came, landing in an outcropping of soft grass that had suddenly grown from between the cracks in the pavement. Nolan was still struggling against the vine wrapping tighter and tighter around his body.

Dan stumbled to his feet, brushing the disheveled curls from his eyes to see a tall, black haired boy smirking at Nolan, brows furrowed with concentration, fist clenched loosely.

“You want me to make it tighter?”

It took Dan a moment to realize the boy was talking to him, and that he was also controlling the vine. 

“W-won’t it crush him?” Dan stuttered. 

The boy shrugged. “We can find out.”

Dan’s eyes widened so far he was certain they would bulge out of his head, before the boy tipped his head back and started laughing. 

“I’m only joking, there’s no need to look so terrified.” He unclenched his fist, and the vine slithered back into the ground. 

Nolan fell forward, palms scraping the pavement. The boy stepped towards him, crossing his arms. 

“Picking on defenseless people is very cowardly,” he told him. “Now fuck off, for real this time.”

Nolan frowned, and Dan was worried for a second that this boy would be the next target of Nolan’s invisible attack. But to his surprise, Dan’s bully did nothing but scoff and walk away, bringing a portion of the group of students surrounding the scene with him. 

“Are you okay?” the boy asked once Nolan was out of earshot. 

“Uh yeah, I’m fine.” 

The group of students had dispersed by now. The boy leaned forward, locking eyes with Dan. His eyes were a piercing blue color that Dan found it hard to look away from.

“So I’m guessing it's true. You don’t have powers.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Dan mumbled, expecting the boy to step away from him like his extreme ordinariness was a contagious disease. 

“Cool.”

“What?”

“That’s cool.” The boy grinned. “It’s almost like having no power is your power.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Dan felt himself blush. “It’s still kind of lame.”

“I don’t think so.” The boy stuck his hand out. “I’m Phil, by the way. I just moved here.”

“Dan,” Dan said, shaking Phil’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

The school bell rang, the monotone sound shocking Dan. Was lunch over already?

“Guess we should get to class.” Phil pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket, smoothing it out and scanning the page. “What do you have next?”

“History 9.”

“Me too!”

Phil grabbed Dan by the arm, dragging him back into the building. And for the first time since he was 13, Dan felt very safe. 

-

Dan and Phil grew inseparable over time, Phil fending off anyone who gave Dan shit with his power over plants, which even included their sophomore English teacher on their first day of tenth grade.

“And what about you? Name and power?”

Dan cleared his throat. “Dan Howell.”

There was a heavy pause. Most of the students in Dan’s class knew about his situation, but very few were willing to speak up about it in fear of getting in trouble. Even Phil stayed quiet in his seat, muscles tense like he was ready to attack. 

“Your power, Mr. Howell?” the teacher asked. Before Dan could start the inevitable explanation, Phil stood from his seat. 

“Why do you even ask to know powers anyway? What difference does it make?” 

The teacher looked taken aback. “Mr. Lester. I wasn’t aware you cared so passionately about this.”

“Well now you are,” Phil replied. “Whatever power we have doesn’t make up who we are. Why not ask him what his favorite color is, or his favorite school subject, I don’t fucking know.”

The class collectively gasped at Phil’s profanity. Cussing out a teacher on the first day only spelt trouble. 

“Mr. Lester I advise you watch your language and your opinions,” the teacher replied icily. “Now I don’t know why Mr. Howell can’t present this argument for himself but I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate you speaking for him.”

Phil’s jaw clenched, and he slowly sat down.

“Thank you.” The teacher sighed, as if dealing with such difficult students was taking a dramatic toll on him. “Now, Mr. Howell. I’m sorry if I may offend you but will you please tell me what your power is?”

“I don’t have one, sir.”

“Hilarious. Do you and Mr. Lester need to give the principal a little visit?”

Dan swallowed a snappy remark. “I don’t have a power, sir. I promise.”

The teacher cast a glance at Phil, and then back to Dan. “I see. You’re the one they’ve told me about.”

Phil was shaking his head angrily. “That’s it,” he muttered. Dan watched intently as Phil’s fist curled from under his desk. 

“Anyway,” the teacher droned. “Who’s next?”

Instead of a reply, there was a smattering of snickers from all corners of the room. The teacher frowned. Dan stifled a smile as he watched a small flower grow from the center of their teacher’s balding head. Phil clenched his fist tighter, and the petals of the flower expanded until it was fully grown, bright yellow daffodil. The class was laughing now, the teacher growing more and more livid by the second until he gathered the place of mind to grab at the top of his head. The petals of Phil’s daffodil fell to the ground, crumbled. 

“Mr. Lester, principal’s office now.” 

-

Phil spent a lot of time at Dan’s house. Phil’s parents would argue a lot, scream at each other and throw plates and lamps and things. Their powers only made it worse. Sometimes Phil would come home to find the whole bottom floor of the house flooded. It was on those days that he retreated to Dan’s house, outcroppings of dead flowers appearing at his feet when he paced around the room. 

“You should sit down and relax,” Dan tried to tell him on an especially hard day. But pacing was always Phil’s thing. He didn’t seem to notice all the dried out brown petals he left on the floor for Dan to sweep up without complaint. 

“It’s hard to. I have to finish that project for chem and then that essay is due tomorrow not to mention…”

“Phil,” Dan interrupted. “Please.”

Phil rolled his eyes and promptly sat down on the floor. “There, happy now?”

“A little bit.” Dan smirked. “You wanna watch an anime or something?”

“I literally just told you how much shit I need to do and you’re proposing we watch anime?”

“Why not?” Dan shrugged, pulling his laptop closer to him and opening it up. “Might take your mind off of everything.”

“But I can’t keep my mind off of it, that’s the point. I need to keep thinking about it until I get it done that’s the only way.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever. I’ve been hearing really good things about this one called Akame ga Kill maybe we should check it out.”

Phil sighed, exasperated. “Dan.”

“Phil.”

They were locked in a silent battle. Dan eventually won, and Phil collapsed on the bed next to him, head sinking into Dan’s mountain of pillows. His dark hair was in dramatic contrast to Dan’s stark white pillowcases. 

“They just suck sometimes,” Phil muttered quietly. 

“What was that?”

“My parents.” Phil stared up at Dan’s ceiling as Dan watched him. “They really suck sometimes.”

“Most parents do.”

“Yeah. Mine especially, though.”

-

With inseparability comes the inevitable deep discussions, and no friendship understood this quite like Dan and Phil. They would talk about everything from Phil’s shitty home life to Dan’s lack of motivation when it came to working towards achieving his lofty goals.

Once, late into the night, Dan’s phone screen lit up, waking him with the notification’s bright light. It was Phil, asking if they could talk. 

Dan, under the impression that he meant on the phone, answered yes along with claims that Phil definitely hadn’t woken him up, he had been awake for hours. However Phil went silent shortly after, and in a few moments Dan heard a tapping on his window. He ran a sleepy hand through his curls and padded to the window, pulling the curtains aside. Phil was waiting for him on the other side, face so close his nose was pressed against the glass. 

Dan scoffed and unlocked the window, wincing as it creaked loudly when he opened it. “It’s three am Phil, what the fuck!”

“Sorry. I had to talk to you.”

Dan’s mock anger fell from his face. “Is it your parents again?”

“No. Well, I mean. They’re still pretty bad. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?”

Phil exhaled loudly, plopping himself of Dan’s bed. It was hard to see him in the dark, but Dan managed to sit beside him. The cold air from the open window stung Dan’s bare back. 

“So this is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” Phil began. “And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell you or not because I wasn’t sure if it was real or not.”

“Okay…”

“But uh…” Phil hesitated. Dan heard him exhale again. “I think I might be gay.”

Dan blinked rapidly. He wasn’t sure how to react. He had never had anyone come out to him before. “Oh, um, okay. Well that’s awesome. I mean good. I mean fine.”

Phil laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Oh um, yeah. No problem.”

“But seriously,” Phil said again. “I’m still the same person, no reason to treat me differently or anything.”

“What? Why would I do that?”

Dan could see the vague outline of Phil’s smile in the dark. “Okay, good. I wasn’t sure.”

“I’m your best friend Phil, and if you think you being gay is going to change that, you’re delusional.”

“Thanks Dan.”

“Of course.”

Phil remained in Dan’s room for a couple of seconds, and in those couple of seconds Dan could feel something stirring in his chest. He wasn’t sure what it was, it almost felt like his heart was beating irregularly, or his lungs were constricting, without the life threatening consequences of those two events. He thought it felt kind of like his heart was expanding, opening up like the petals of a daffodil. 

-

The feeling went away up until Dan saw Phil at school the next day. 

Dan was true to his word, of course, things were normal between them. Phil kept the bullies away with a simple clench of his fist and Dan made jokes about how stupid Nolan’s new shoes were. The only thing amiss was the ever present growing sensation inside of Dan’s heart. The only time throughout the day that it went away was Dan’s only glass without Phil. 

He would have to be stupid to not notice the pattern. 

That night, Dan stayed up late researching the types of powers and how they are felt. He learned a lot about aggressive powers, like Phil’s plant growth or Nolan’s invisible limbs. He learned about passive powers, like invisibility or teleportation. But most importantly, he learned about emotional powers. 

He learned that those with emotional powers are generally capable of sensing the strong emotions of others. Some people go insane from the amount of emotions they feel, the sadness or happiness or even fear that emit from every person they walk past. And some people can only feel the emotions when it occurs because of them. One person Dan read about explained how whenever she made someone sad she would begin to sob uncontrollably. Another man, who described himself as tall and burly, felt a shiver of fear whenever he passed someone smaller than him. It was so disturbing that he didn’t leave his home often anymore. 

By the end of the night Dan was certain that he had an emotional power. And he was pretty sure he knew what emotion it was that he was sensing. Because the more Dan thought about it, the more sense it made. And the more Dan’s heart expanded with every second he was around Phil, the more he felt certain that Phil wasn’t the only one. 

-

One night, after Dan had mustered up the courage, he called Phil. It was nearly midnight, so he was almost guaranteed to be awake. 

“Hello?” he chirped on the other end.

“Hey.” Dan swallowed his fear. “Can you come over?”

“Sure, what’s up?” 

Dan could hear Phil rustling, probably trying to find his shoes. “I just… need to talk to you that’s all.”

Phil paused. Dan’s breath caught in his throat. “Sure, of course. I’m on my way. 

Phil appeared in less than ten minutes, Dan already opening the window before he could start tapping. He could feel the now familiar expanding in his chest starting when Phil was a minute away.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Dan stared down at his bare feet. “I think I figured out what my power is.”

Phil’s eyes widened. “No shit. You must be a late bloomer.”

“I don’t think so. I just think I hadn’t had the opportunity to… use it.”

“Well?” Phil asked impatiently. “What is it?”

Dan sat down on his bed, bracing himself for what he was about to reveal. Phil stayed standing, brows furrowed with concern.

“Dan?”

“I think that my power is being able to tell when people are in love with me.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. The first one between the two of them in their four years of friendship. 

“So I’m guessing you know then?” Phil whispered.

“Yeah.” Was it Dan’s imagination or was Phil stepping closer towards him?

“And…? Are you mad?”

“Of-of course not,” Dan sputtered. “I just… I just…”

“You just what?”

“I just wasn’t sure if I felt the same way or not and it took me a long time to realize that I did and…”

Dan’s rambling was cut off by Phil’s soft lips pressed against his, one hand cupping his cheek and another on his shoulder. Dan stood awkwardly, never letting their lips separate as he wrapped his arms around Phil’s waist. The sweet scent of flowers filled his nose and it felt like his heart was bursting. 

When Dan and Phil pulled apart they noticed the flower garden that had sprouted under Phil’s shoes and the vines that had crawled Dan’s walls. 

“Oops,” Phil whispered, giggling like a little kid. It was contagious. Dan started giggling as well until Phil tipped forward again, sealing their lips back together. 

The two remained in Dan’s room, surrounded by their daffodil garden, for the rest of the night.


End file.
